Her tears moved and interested the good general to such an extent that, having bought the house, he begged the occupant to remain in it and admit him, the buyer, as a member of his family and the husband of his daughter. It is hardly necessary to add that Don Iago received this proposition as a message of felicity, and that his daughter hailed it as a means of escaping lower depths of the abyss into which fortune had hurled her. To paint the rage of the aunt's sister-in-law when she heard of the projected alliance would be a difficult task. She spread calumnies upon Ismena, ridiculed the marriage, and spit out her venom in bitter sarcasms, prophesying that the union of the ambitious beggar with the worn-out valetudinarian would remain without issue; in short, that Providence would mock their calculations, and cause the title, for lack of a male inheritor, to return to her own family. The excessive pride of Ismena, more than ever susceptible since her misfortune, was stung beyond endurance by those gibes and revilings. And she was still more chagrined when, after having been married two years without giving birth to a child, she seemed to see the prophecies of her enemy realized. It appeared that God would deny the blessing of children to the wife who desired them not from the holy instinct of maternal love, but to satisfy a base pride and a contemptible covetousness; not for the blessed glory of seeing herself surrounded by her offspring, but from the haughty and miserable desire of humiliating a rival—of triumphing over an enemy. It is at this time and under the influence of these feelings that we have introduced Ismena, Countess of Alcira, bathed in tears. And for this we say that these drops, so cold and bitter, were not tokens of wounded love, but of rage and spite.
Chapter III.
The general had learned that the house in Chiclana was for sale from his secretary, who was the son of Don Iago's housekeeper. A few words will explain this.
The general, when young, had for many years an orderly whom he loved well. The Spanish orderly is the model domestic, the ideal servant. He is wanting in nothing, has always more than enough, and does whatever is asked of him unquestioningly and with pleasure. If he were bidden, he would, like St. Theresa, plant rotten onions through the same spirit of blind obedience. He has the heart of a child, the patience of a saint, and the attachment of that type of devoted affection, the dog. Like him he loves and cares for all that belongs to his master, and, most of all, for his children, if he has any. And to such a degree does he carry this devotion, that one of our celebrated generals has said that "an orderly makes the very best of dry nurses." He has no will of his own, does not know what laziness is, is humble and brave, grateful and obliging. And in the household, where his coming may have occasioned the natural irritation and repulsion caused by whatever invades the domestic circle, his departure is always sincerely felt.
Before he left Spain the general, then a captain, had lived for a long time with his orderly in the greatest friendship, without the latter having lost the least grain of his respect for his chief. When the general went to America, his orderly, to the great grief of both, left him, and returned to his native town of Chiclana to marry the bride who, with a constancy not unusual in Spain, had waited for him fifteen years. A few years later the orderly died leaving one child, a son, to the care of his disconsolate widow. The poor woman, accompanied by a little niece she had adopted, took service with Don Iago O'Donnell. As for the boy, who was godson to the general, the latter sent for him, had him educated under his own care, and afterward made him his secretary. In this capacity he brought him back to Spain. Lázaro—so he was named—was one of those beings who are sealed by nature with the stamp of nobility, and who, aided by circumstances, become unconscious heroes by simply following their natural instincts.
Having learned from his mother that the house in which she lived was for sale, he had informed the general, who bought it, and with it his young and beautiful wife.
A beautiful woman she was; as fair and delicate as an alabaster nymph; as cold, also, and as void of feeling; a being who had never loved anything but herself; insipid and without sweetness; a jessamine flower that had never felt the rays of the sun.
Later in the afternoon, an attendant called Nora entered the room in which we found Ismena, to open the windows. Nora had been Ismena's nurse, and had never left her. She was a proud and cunning woman, and had done much to develop the perverse dispositions of the girl.
"Always weeping," she said with a gesture of impatience at the sight of Ismena's tears. "You will lose your good looks, and when your husband dies, all you have beside will be gone, youth, consideration, and wealth. You will then have no recourse but to turn pious and spend your days dressing up the holy images."
"I know too well that I shall lose everything, that is why I weep," replied Ismena.